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Relief to Haiti; Doctors Trying to Get to Haiti; Virginia Boy Missing in Haiti
Aired January 14, 2010 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Forty-three hours and counting since Haiti's devastating earthquake. Countries around the world are rushing in food, medicine, and other lifesaving supplies. A U.S. search team this morning rescued a man from the rubble from the U.N.'s collapsed building in Port-au-Prince. Once freed, he was able to walk out on his own.
The time is running out to find other survivors across the capital. President Obama says he has made it clear to his national security team that Haitian relief efforts must be a top priority.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And today I'm also announcing an immediate investment of $100 million to support our relief efforts. This will mean more of the lifesaving equipment, food, water and medicine that will be needed. This investment will grow over the coming year as we embark on the long-term recovery from this unimaginable tragedy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: The Fairfax County, Virginia, Urban Search & Rescue team is on the ground right now searching for victims. Our Josh Levs is here in the NEWSROOM following that story for us.
Josh, show us more, tell us more about the rescue.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tony, I just spoke with them, and they tell me that they are the first such group, search and rescue team, anywhere in the world that has arrived. And they are the first of several coming from the United States.
We have this video that we're going to right now. And as we know, this is a group that went to the U.N. Compound there. But this group from Fairfax, Virginia, has actually sent teams to several locations.
They have 72 personnel, six search and rescue canines. They have brought 48 tons of rescue equipment, and this team is self-sustaining for 14 days, meaning they have all the food, water, they need to get by on their own for two full weeks to do this kind of work.
And it's a group from Virginia that has a lot of experience working overseas in emergency situations. They're called the Virginia Task Force International Urban Search and Rescue.
And what you're seeing there is a man, who they tell me he was pulled from the rubble. Now, obviously, he's not one of the people who was way, way, down who was severely injured. But they tell me he was there, he was trapped under some rubble. He's an Estonian U.N. security officer, and this is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TARMO JOVEER, U.N. SECURITY OFFICER: I lost the footing. I was standing, you know. I was laying on the floor. That was it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you never lost hope? How was it being there trapped all that time?
JOVEER: It wasn't good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVS: I bet it wasn't good.
OK. Now, we have one more piece of video from them that we're going to show you here. And this is where they're spray-painting the buildings as they go around.
And this is what a lot of people are looking at now also online. This is circulating right now. A lot of people are paying attention to this.
And what they're doing is they are marking that they have checked it out. They're putting "CO" for carbon monoxide, meaning there's a risk there of carbon monoxide. And they're putting a marker showing that they were the team that was there.
Now, they are the first on the ground doing search and rescue, but we have thousands of U.S. personnel that are on the way, including in this, the USS Carl Vinson. Let's take a look there.
This is a U.S. aircraft carrier. And they've been traveling now, and they're working their way toward Haiti and they are carrying on them relief supplies and helicopters. So, we are seeing video from inside the ship, this new vide that just came in last hour.
And what they have are these critical medicines to help some people who are dying, who are in desperate need of medication. So they're getting these together. They're going to load up some helicopters. We don't know if any have actually taken off yet from the ship, but this is exactly the kind of video you want to be seeing today.
This is what needs to happen, this focus on rescue, this focus on getting people the necessary supplies in order to get by. And obviously it's a welcome sight, that this is happening at all. But we're not going to negate the huge challenges they have ahead of them, getting the medicine there, getting food, getting water, getting basics. That's why I told you that Virginia team, Tony, had to carry 48 tons of equipment. You can't just use people to lift up these massive buildings that have turned to rubble. They need huge amounts of equipment, and then they need to navigate somehow around the air or the water or the impassable roads in order to get there. So, it's a big task, but if anyone can do it, it's these teams that we're seeing.
HARRIS: Well, it's just a really impressive effort that is -- that has been mobilized, that is queuing to get into Port-au-Prince right now. It is so impressive.
I need to get a check, and maybe Chad Myers can help me, to get an idea of how many flights are in the air now trying to get to the Port-au-Prince airport.
Josh, appreciate it. And again, if you get new video, just flag me.
LEVS: We'll be right here. You got it.
HARRIS: It is indeed a race against time. More U.S. aid is heading for Haiti this hour. The Coast Guard cutter Forward arrived at the capital city's port earlier today.
The aircraft USS Carl Vinson -- you saw pictures of it moments ago -- is expected this afternoon. Other Navy ships are headed there as well. Among them, the much needed hospital ship the Comfort. The Comfort has 12 operating rooms and space for 1,000 beds.
Former Lieutenant General Russel Honore, who directed much of the recovery from Hurricane Katrina, joins us in 40 minutes to talk more about that.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cancelled a trip to Asia to focus on the response to this earthquake. She talked about the relief effort earlier on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: We've got a very coordinated, aggressive response going on. We have sent some of our crack search and rescue teams into Port-au-Prince. They're beginning their work. We're coordinating with the Haitian president, President Preval.
Unfortunately, as you know, the government buildings were terribly damaged by the earthquake. A lot of government members unaccounted for. No communications system.
We're supplying a communications system so they can begin to get up and running. We're working with the United Nations, which was equally devastated by the collapse of their headquarters. So, the authorities that existed before the earthquake are not able to fully function. We're going to try to support them as they re-establish authority.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Getting aid to the thousands and thousands of people who need it is no easy task. Relief workers face a difficult situation. Roads are damaged. Power is out in several areas. Clean water, as you can imagine, is scarce right now.
A senior Red Cross official says people are getting desperate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NAN BUZARD, AMERICAN RED CROSS: The big struggle here is going to be how to get things out from the warehouses -- or from the airport tarmac, because you have a very compromised infrastructure, and you also have a lot of people who are dazed, who are confused. You saw a clip, I think, earlier, where people were running when they heard there was water. So, the chaotic environment, I think is profoundly undermining -- or is going to undermine and compromise the relief effort.
We're going to have to deal with it. We will deal with it. We've done it before. But this is something that we have to keep a very tight eye on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Thousands of Haitians need medical help at this hour, but doctors from the United States are having a difficult time getting into the earthquake zone. We're going to show you why.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: The need for medical care in Haiti is urgent, but getting medical personnel into the country right now is a real challenge.
Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with a group of doctors trying to get to Haiti. Elizabeth is on the phone with us right now.
And if you would, Elizabeth, talk to us about how difficult it has been to get the doctors into Port-au-Prince.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, Tony, it has been an incredibly frustrating morning for the doctors here at the University of Miami. They were supposed to take off at 10:00 this morning, a group of doctors and nurses, to go and rescue about a dozen people from Haiti and bring them back here for urgently need medical care.
Well, they haven't even taken off yet. It's going to be several hours before they do.
The reason why, there are planes circling, hovering over Haiti, as we speak, from all over the world, trying to get in with blood, trying to get in with doctors, trying to get in with medical supplies. And they're circling, we're told, for about an hour and a half before they're allowed to land. And they land one at a time, and it's very slow-going -- Tony.
HARRIS: And Elizabeth, if you would, you did such a great job of talking to us yesterday about the window of opportunity here for saving people. If you would, we're talking about 43 hours in now. Where are we in that cycle now of opportunity to save people who are trapped in Haiti?
COHEN: Right. Tony, there's this 72-hour window that doctors talk about, 72 hours after a disaster like an earthquake, that you have really to go in there and save lives. And after 72 hours, the chances of rescuing people under the rubble dwindles to, you know, pretty much nothing.
So, when a flight -- if a flight getting into a place is a couple hours late, it's usually not a big deal. But when you're talking about a 72-hour window, and you're talking about a four-or-five-hour delay, that's a big deal. And that's -- so people want to come in from all over the world to help the people of Haiti, but they're finding they can't get there, they can't land there, as quickly as they would like.
HARRIS: And Elizabeth, ,one last question. Once this team finally does get in the air, get on the ground in Port-au-Prince, what is the plan, logistically? Where do they go, and how many are we talking about deploying once you get up and down in Port-au-Prince?
COHEN: What this team is going to do is they're going to go in. They're going to identify somewhere between an eight and 12 critically injured people in Haiti, put them on this plane, and fly them back to Miami, fly them back to the University of Miami, where they can give them the care they need. They brought some people back last night, and they said it's much tougher to get in today.
HARRIS: So, they've identified the people. They've identified where they are. They just can't get in the air and get to Haiti?
COHEN: That's right. They're in the process of identifying them. They just can't get them on that plane.
HARRIS: All right. Elizabeth Cohen for us.
Elizabeth, appreciate it. Thank you.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HARRIS: On the streets of Port-au-Prince today, you can hear the shrieks, the moans of people trapped under slabs of concrete.
CNN's Jonathan Mann live now from the Haitian capital.
And John, good to see you.
What are you seeing? We heard a senior Red Cross official moments ago that people are getting desperate. We know that there is a massive effort trying to get in to Port-au-Prince, but as you just heard Chad Myers say, it may not be enough. Are you starting to see some of the desperation that was described moments ago?
JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me be honest with you, Tony. We're seeing the conditions that would make anyone beyond desperate.
Imagine losing a child, imagine losing two children in a natural disaster, and having to leave their bodies on the street, covered by a piece of fabric because there was no one to take the bodies, nowhere to bring them. The conditions that these people are enduring are the conditions that would make anyone desperate.
The remarkable thing, if anything, is that there has been no breakdown in social order. There has been no violence of any organized kind.
This is a city that knows more than its share of petty crime, but there has been no outburst of organized anger. People, if anything, are coming together. They are sharing. They are helping.
In the park behind this -- and I think you can see it, Tony -- it's really just a dirty government amphitheater. It's turned into a makeshift tent city.
Hundreds of people were there last night, and here's what the extraordinary thing is and the juxtaposition. We heard gunfire coming from that tent city, which is now empty, as people made their way elsewhere for people looking for food and water. But we also heard prayer. We heard people chanting, "Thank you, God."
There has been enormous, enormous amount of emotion. There has been a desperate effort to find the survivors.
But the thing that some people fear, a large-scale uprising against the government, large-scale violence, looting, those kind of things, I'm happy to say, haven't happened. The people of Port-au- Prince are holding it together. They are coming together. And we can only hope that the aid which is now getting in will make the difference in a material way.
HARRIS: Yes. Boy.
Jonathan Mann for us in the Haitian capital. Boy, what a scene.
John, appreciate it. Thank you.
Let's do this -- let's check our other top stories, the stories we're following today.
The U.S. government says it is watching what it describes as a new and credible threat from al Qaeda in Yemen. Two senior officials say that threat is directed at the U.S. homeland, but specifics are unclear.
A holiday gift for the nation's stores. Retail sales for November and December rose 1.1 percent, according to the National Retail Federation. The group had forecast a decline of one percent, which would have followed a 3.4 percent drop in holiday sales in 2008.
R&B singer Teddy Pendergrass has died in suburban Philadelphia. Pendergrass, who had been paralyzed from the waist down since a 1982 car accident, underwent surgery for colon cancer last year. Among his hits, "Turn off the Lights" and "Love TKO."
Pendergrass was 59.
We will get another check of our top stories in 20 minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Among the missing in Haiti, a 13-year-old boy from Virginia.
Reporter Ava Hurdle from Virginia Beach affiliate WAVY spoke to his worried father.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AVA HURDLE, REPORTER, WAVY (voice-over): Thirteen-year-old Andrew Foster is an eighth-grader at St. Gregory the Great Catholic School in Virginia Beach. He flew to Port-au-Prince Tuesday afternoon with his uncle on real estate business. Both share a scuba diving hobby and planned to take some time to do just that.
But Robert Foster got a phone call from his son right after he landed in Haiti, as the earthquake hit the area, and hasn't heard from him since.
ROBERT FOSTER, FATHER: Well, obviously we're concerned for Andrew. His first time away from his mother and I traveling abroad. You know, trip of a lifetime. You know, 20 minutes of business to take care of while he's done there, and a week of sunning and funning and scuba diving. And obviously, this is not the life experience we had in mind for him.
HURDLE: He wanted "10 On Your Side" to put out the information for one reason.
FOSTER: If there are any relief workers or any people traveling from this area, which I know in the next couple of days there will be a lot of people transiting down there, I mean, he's a skinny red- headed kid in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. You know, if someone saw this picture once, I'm sure that they would pick him out in a crowd.
HURDLE: He just wants to know his son is OK.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And you can hear more from Robert Foster, the boy's father, on "LARRY KING LIVE," a special tonight, "Horror in Haiti," beginning at 9:00 Eastern Time.
The 13-year-old Virginia boy is among thousands unaccounted for in Port-au-Prince.
CNN's Amber Lyon is manning our missing persons desk in Miami.
Amber, good to see you.
And we know communications in Haiti are less than ideal, so talk us through how we're trying to build this bridge here.
AMBER LYON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Tony, as you said, communications very limited right now in this country. Very few people have access to cell phones or the Internet.
So you can only imagine the sense of desperate helplessness going through the minds of people in the states and all over the world, because they cannot get a hold of their loved ones in Haiti, just to know if they're doing OK. So, here at CNN, we wanted to help out.
We combined all of our resources to newly create this missing persons desk. And what we're going to do right now, if you do not know the whereabouts of someone in Haiti, head to CNN.com/haitimissing.
What you're going to see when you first pull up the screen is "Looking for Loved Ones in Haiti." This is where people have been posting pictures of their loved ones who are in Haiti right now, they don't know where they are, they don't know if they're doing OK. And let's just take a look at one of these right now.
This is little Gaelle. She is just 9 years old. She had some family members post that beautiful photo of her up on the Internet right now.
They say that they're looking for her. She's living in Carrefour with her aunt, just outside Port-au-Prince. So please contact them if you have seen this little girl. And let's pull up a big shot of that photo right now.
And we've had a lot of success with this. In fact, about one photo every minute is going up on this site of people looking for loved ones.
And speaking of success, take a look at this one. It gives us a little hope in this dire situation.
This is Benson Vilneas (ph), and his wife apparently posted this up here. She says, "Have you seen my husband, Benson? He's the one wearing the black suit in this photo." And she also posted on there that Benson has since been found.
Now, in addition to connecting people in the states with people in Haiti, there's a lot of people in Haiti right now who want to let their relatives know that they're doing OK.
HARRIS: That's right.
LYON: But as we said earlier, they don't have access to cell phones or Internet, so they're not able to do that. So they've actually been using some people on the ground from CNN to do so. If you were watching Anderson Cooper last night, some people handed him literally pieces of rolled-up paper with their names on it to have Anderson read over the air to let their families in the states know that they're doing OK.
And let's go to a couple of those names.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: People have been literally handing me pieces of papers on the streets all day with their names and the names of their loved ones back in the United States. They're desperate to get information to them.
A man named Alfred Luciner (ph) wanted me to let his family in Brooklyn know that he's alive. Again, just passing along that message. Alfred Luciner (ph) is actually alive for his family in Brooklyn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LYON: And we're going to be here all day manning the new missing persons desk. Once again, that's CNN.com/haitimissing. Head there right now if you want to be connected with any of your loved ones -- Tony.
HARRIS: Amber, that's good stuff. That is good stuff. Glad you're there. Good stuff, indeed.
Amber Lyon for us.
And we have some new video just in to CNN we have to share with you. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta, who is in Haiti, as you know, responded to an emergency request to care for a 15-day- old baby girl that need medical attention for a head injury.
Let's have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: She is moving all four extremities.
Hi, sweetie. Hi, sweetie. Hi.
How old is she?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fifteen days.
GUPTA: Good.
Do we have any antibiotics or any medications at all? Did she get any antibiotics? Antibiotics?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It doesn't look like I do, Sanjay. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, nothing. Nothing.
GUPTA: OK. She's going to need some antibiotics. And we're going to need to redress this wound.
Let's go ahead and do that (INAUDIBLE).
So, this is what's happening out here in the streets of Port-au- Prince. In this case, a 15-day-old baby who was in the earthquake.
Yes, let me have you hold that for a second. Can you wrap that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How tight do you want me to wrap?
GUPTA: Not very tight, just enough to hold her there. Come down beneath her ears (INAUDIBLE) ears. Yes.
Now start at the forehead. Good. Good. OK.
Go ahead and cut that into two little metal things. Go ahead and -- I'll hold this here. And then pull those. Give it some tightness, yes, and stretch over there.
Yes. Perfect. Good. Do you have one more or just one?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's it.
GUPTA: OK.
So, she has no skull fracture. She does have a big laceration that's going to need antibiotics. But she does not appear to have a head injury.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: You just cannot believe what you're watching. Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, called into action, a neurosurgeon, perfect for the job, obviously. Sanjay was able, as you heard, to determine that the baby does not have a skull fracture, but a head laceration, and the baby needs antibiotics.
And, of course, you can see more of Sanjay's reporting right here on CNN, as well as this weekend on his program. That's Saturday and Sunday morning, 7:30 a.m. Eastern Time on CNN.
Let's get back to Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth Cohen , our senior medical correspondent, is in Fort Lauderdale with a group of doctors desperately trying to get to Port-au-Prince.
And Elizabeth, I understand you have an update for us.
COHEN: Sadly, these doctors, Tony, are not going to be getting into Port-au-Prince soon. And that's because -- I just got off the phone with the FAA -- the FAA are not allowing any more U.S. flights to take off for Haiti. They say that there are just too many flights in Haiti right now, the airport is full. The ramp space is all taken up. And there are 11 flights, 10 civilian and one military, hovering over Haiti waiting to land.
So, the FAA says we're not going to send more planes just to hover over the city. Everybody has to stay in the U.S.
So, all of these doctors that I've been talking with all day long here in Miami, they cannot go do the work that they wanted to do right now -- Tony.
HARRIS: All right. Elizabeth, appreciate it. Thanks for that update.
We will continue with our coverage of the disaster, the quake, the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, and the relief effort, right after this.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: OK. We're just trying to bring you the latest information and pictures as soon as we get them here in to the CNN NEWSROOM.
We've got some new video now, and I know Josh is going to be with me in just a second here to describe what we're seeing here. Obviously an aerial view of Port-au-Prince and maybe some of the surrounding areas. Not sure if we're on board at this point with a military jet. Looks like one of the private charters. There are many, as you know, that are trying to make their way to Port-au- Prince. And we just heard from our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, that the FAA is shutting a lot of that activity down right now.
Chad, I believe you heard that as well.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right.
HARRIS: Because there's just too much air traffic in the area. Too many planes trying to get in to a very confined space.
MYERS: Well, what the problem is, Tony, is that, yes, we have so many planes down here. What the FAA has called now -- is called a ground stop. That means that if you are on the tarmac and you have not departed yet, you cannot get in the air to any specific airport. They call ground stops to Newark and LaGuardia and every . . .
HARRIS: That's right. That's right.
MYERS: If there's a volume issue. And there's obviously now a volume bottleneck here into Haiti. Planes come out of here. FXE. It's a blocked flight. I don't know what the plane is. It looks like it could be a Learjet because it has the jets there on the fuselage. It's at 29,000 feet and climbing, doing 405 miles per hour. It looks like it's getting out. I don't know where it's going, but this plane right here is an LOC-1670 is the flight, coming out of Ft. Lauderdale and it is now being diverted. See this dashed line right there?
HARRIS: Yes.
MYERS: It's being diverted all the way down to Santo Domingo.
And we know how hard Anderson Cooper tried to -- work to get from DR over to Haiti.
HARRIS: Oh, yes.
MYERS: And the roads are just done.
HARRIS: Right.
MYER: I mean there's just you just can't even get there. So now with equipment and doctors over in the DR, I don't know what we do except try to ferry people or equipment back and forth by helicopters, because they need to get this airport cleared out and get these other airplanes that are on the ground being unloaded, you got to get them unloaded and get them out of there because you need more space there at the airport.
HARRIS: OK. You can help me with this because you've got all kinds of maps over there. We're talking about Port-au-Prince, which is south central Haiti, correct?
MYERS: Yes.
HARRIS: And is south and east -- south and west. So we've got a situation where we've got aircraft trying to get into the airport, which is north Port-au-Prince, and we've got ships, the USS Carl Vinson, trying to get into the area. And we've got the port, which is west of Port-au-Prince as well. And -- but we understand a situation where we have greater Port-au-Prince being impacted, about 3 million people, according to the Red Cross, being impacted by this earthquake.
MYERS: Yes.
HARRIS: And they're on the west coast of Port-au-Prince? They're central Port-au-Prince. And then there is the east edge of Port-au- Prince. And now you mentioned Santo Domingo and trying to relieve the bottleneck there of people, supplies, trying to get from Santo Domingo somehow. You've got a huge mountain range here.
MYERS: Uh-huh.
HARRIS: How do you do this? How do you logistically do this so that you can get help to the people who are trapped on the eastern edges of Port-au-Prince?
MYERS: Well, first of all, now, the big deal is that Port-au- Prince doesn't have any fuel. The airport doesn't have fuel. So when planes land, they better have enough fuel to take off and go somewhere else to refuel because the Port-au-Prince airport completely out of fuel.
HARRIS: Yes. Yes.
MYERS: So, if you don't have enough fuel to get there or to get off, they're not even allowing you to land there. And now that's where the diversions are coming from.
HARRIS: Yes.
MYERS: And, you know, it's just going to be one thing after another. And this is what happens when you have literally have one airstrip. You have one -- here, I'll take it to you. One air strip. This is it. I mean you would love to be able to be flying all of this stuff into Atlanta-Hartsfield Airport . . .
HARRIS: Into Hartsfield, sure.
MYERS: Because you've got how many air -- you've got -- you've just got an unlimited number of places to land. Well, that's not the case when you have literally one airline and one air field. There it is right there. And they're now parking planes in the dirt -- it's kind of hard to move this around, but there they are.
HARRIS: Yes.
MYERS: It's a little bit jerky when it gets so close, but there's the air field right there.
HARRIS: Right.
MYERS: One road in, one road out. And now that road doesn't have any fuel. And so planes are going to be -- I don't know, Tony. I think that maybe the answer would be float planes that can actually land in the water.
HARRIS: Yes.
MYERS: Obviously, if you can get some equipment and if you can lift -- take a ship and dock it somewhere that you can actually move back and forth from that ship to the island, to the peninsula, that would be great.
HARRIS: Yes.
MYERS: Otherwise, you know, we're going to start seeing air drops.
HARRIS: There you go, Chad.
MYERS: We're going to start they're going to start pushing stuff off the back of one, well, you know, C-130s and then . . .
HARRIS: Get those MREs on the ground. Something. MYERS: You know what happens when those things hit the ground, right, I mean it just turns into chaos, especially for people at their at their wit's end now trying to look for water, look for food.
HARRIS: Yes.
MYERS: Tony, this has just begun.
HARRIS: Yes. All right, Chad, appreciate it. We've got to get to break. We'll be back in just a moment. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Boy, collapsed buildings. People trapped beneath the rubble. No electricity or water. That's the situation in much of Haiti 43 hours after the earthquake. Before we get to Tom Foreman's piece, I want get back to Josh Levs.
And, Josh, we've been watching video from this flyover of Port- au-Prince. And you've got some information on this trip.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, let me just talk to you about it. So, Anderson Cooper and his team are trying to get in the air when they can to survey the area and work with authorities and see what they're finding. So they went up in this plane. And as you can see, they're taking a look at what it looks like currently in this area, in Port-au-Prince, which is the biggest population center inside Haiti. And there's a lot that you need to look out for in here.
First of all, you're obviously going to look out for buildings. You're going to see if there are lots and lots of destroyed buildings. They're going to be checking out roads. They're going to be seeing if there's people standing on top of buildings jumping up and down trying to rescue.
You're going to look for other things. You're going to look for potential fires. You're going to look for current buildings that might be so weak that they could be in the process of imploding on their own. You're also going to look for any passable roads that might help set a path for when all this rescue comes in.
So basically there are several teams in the air, as you know, among the authorities. And Anderson and his team went up with this plane. They're checking it out there. And while -- let's stay on that video for a second. I also, Tony, I know you were talking about the different parts of Haiti . . .
HARRIS: Yes.
LEVS: And where we're going to get help to. I pulled up a map here from Google behind me that might help us a little bit.
HARRIS: Great. LEVS: If you want to check it out -- we can keep that video, maybe put this in a little box, but basically we were talking about Port-au-Prince. We're here -- this is all of Haiti right here. Whoops, we've got all of Haiti right here.
HARRIS: Yes.
LEVS: And then Port-au-Prince is right over in this section.
HARRIS: Yes.
LEVS: So what we're talking about, I mean, you obviously have everything north. And even though Port-au-Prince is right here again the water, it's certainly not the kind of situation that you could say, well, Port-au-Prince is the only concern.
HARRIS: Thank you.
LEVS: Throughout here, as you move over here, you still have devastation. Way over here, we've seen a lot of pictures from this area, called Laki (ph).
HARRIS: Thank you.
LEVS: We've been getting a lot of pictures and I-Reports from there. So Port-au-Prince is the biggest population center in Haiti. But as you move around, you're certainly going to see that there are lots of areas. There's devastation for miles and miles and miles among the population.
And so this is what we're seeing right now. There's a focus on the capital just because it's where so many people are. But the truth is, you know, there are going to be aerials like this, Tony, in lots of other parts of the country as well.
HARRIS: Yes.
LEVS: And that's what's going on today. This is the latest video and that's what we're showing you throughout the day from the international desk as it comes in. The latest video (INAUDIBLE).
HARRIS: All right, Josh, appreciate it. Thank you.
LEVS: You bet. Thank you.
HARRIS: And let's do this very quickly. Let's check our other top stories.
President Obama, this morning, is calling on Congress to recoup any federal bailout money that hasn't been repaid. He wants a 10-year tax imposed on the nation's 50 major banking institutions with more than $50 billion in assets.
The U.S. government is watching what's described as a new, credible threat from al Qaeda in Yemen aimed at the U.S. homeland. That's according to two senior officials who say the specifics are unclear.
Collapsed buildings, people trapped beneath the rubble, no electricity or water. That is the situation in much of Haiti, 43 hours after the earthquake. CNN's Tom Foreman look at what happens over the next few days to bring some order amid the misery and chaos.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're getting a very big picture right now. In fact, our first satellite images of the damage. This is the before picture from DigitalGlobe and Google Earth. I want you to watch as we slide this apart to this image now from GeoEye. And you can see how the presidential palace just cracked right in half. And as we move out across the city, you can see block after block after block where these buildings just collapsed into the road.
This image from GeoEye, and others like it, will prove very, very valuable, because there's a big job happening right now. Over the next 24 hours, I think what people have to look at very closely, going to be the airport, which is right up here, and the harbor out here.
And I'm going to tell you why. If we bring this up for a moment, I'll show you that essentially what they have now is an order of action that has to be followed right now. They have to clear these roads and assess the damages. They have to launch these search-and- rescue teams throughout the city. They have to re-establish hospitals and aid centers and open supply lines. And that must happen across this whole big picture we just looked at here.
And when I talk about reopening the roads, again, difficult to see when you're right on top of it. From the wide picture, you can see it. If we bring up the roads here, many of the major arteries that people have to travel on throughout here are blocked in some fashion. Some of these roads may be blocked dozens of times. So, the heavy equipment is going to have to hit the road.
The military is coming in here. They're going to try to control the airport, get this all under control and stage much of the assault on this problem from there. And also from out here. Gradually, on the ground, with heavy equipment, they will try to turn some of those red roads into green roads as they reach deeper into the population to try to help out all these people.
President Obama has said he wants this to be the main focus for the next three days, this search-and-rescue thing, getting these teams out there. They'll try to establish operational centers and look at the issue of refugees.
So, the problem will be, though, even as you clear on the ground, beyond this you're still going to have tremendous numbers of people way out here, with all sorts of damage where the ground approach will simply not be able to go far enough. That's where, again, you're going to see, in the next few days, out here in the harbor, you'll see more of a military presence as we will have an aircraft carrier there, there will be Coast Guard helicopters, heavy-lift helicopters, this sort of thing. They will be able to stage from here, from this area and from the airport, fly right over the roads they are able to open up and the closed roads to get to these very distant areas where they can drop off supplies. They can also pull out the people who are in the deepest amount of trouble. That's one way they're going to try to stabilize this.
Over the next few days, you're going to see a tremendous effort aimed at just this, controlling the airport, controlling the harbor, beginning to open roads and establishing supply lines.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: All right, Tom Foreman has teed up our next guest perfectly. When we come back, we're going to talk to a man -- there he is -- who knows so much, everything, about running a massive relief operation. General Russel Honore joins me straight ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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HARRIS: The humanitarian crisis in Haiti takes many of us back to the harrowing days after Hurricane Katrina when rescuers were rushing around against time, trying to save lives. The man who took charge of the military effort after the Gulf Coast disasters with us, General Russel Honore, now a CNN contributor, joining me live from Detroit.
General, good to see you. It's been too long.
I'm curious, first of all, how concerned are you with what appears to be -- and maybe you have different information -- with what appears to be a real bottleneck getting military, materials, doctors, water, into Port-au-Prince right now?
LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, first of all, it's a very challenging environment. Number two, I think we should have started moving about 24 hours earlier with the search-and-rescue teams.
But that being said, this is -- we'll have to look at this after this operation's over with. Right now, it's going to be controlling that airfield and getting that port open as two primary priorities.
And, look, Tony, we've got injured people that haven't had any medical care yet. We need to talk about how we're going to evacuate them out there. Every airplane leaving Haiti needs to be coming out there with a full load of people. The question is, where is the State Department decide where you're going to send them? What is the evacuation plan? Because you will not be able to attend to all these several injured people in Haiti, and where is the U.N. and the State Department arranging to take them. We've certainly got some capacity here in the United States.
HARRIS: How about Guantanamo?
HONORE: Well, I mean, I don't know if we want to try to move massive amount of people into Guantanamo based on what's happened there in recent years.
HARRIS: Well, let me see if I understand you here. I have been saying that what is queuing up to get to Port-au-Prince looks to be pretty massive. I think I hear you saying that we should have started even 24 hours earlier?
HONORE: Well, I wish we had. But it is what it is right now.
HARRIS: Right.
HONORE: And the military's going to do the best it can when it's on the ground. But the biggest thing is to get that port open, we get the heavy equipment in and keep that airfield flowing 24 hours a day. The last report I had last night, the airfield closed at nighttime because it didn't have -- the military has kits they can put in there and make that airfield a 24-hour operations.
HARRIS: Yes. Hey, what can you tell us about the military -- I wish I had the list with me. I just don't. What can you tell us about the military units being deployed and what kinds of capabilities they have?
HONORE: Well, that brigade out of the 82nd Airborne is a full- spectrum brigade. That meaning it can do these type of operations with very little notice. The key is going to be is the mobility once they get on the ground. That brigade normally jumps into locations, the airborne brigade, about 3,200 to 3,500 troops. They came -- they are the same ones who -- from the 82nd we brought in to Katrina, as you remember. So, they'll make a difference with manpower. What they will need is equipment once they get on the ground to be able to penetrate those roads and to try to open areas up. And that equipment should be coming in by heavy aircraft and/or by ship through the United States Navy.
HARRIS: Are we going to have to get air drops going of food, MREs, of water?
HONORE: I would think everything is on the table right now to be able to get food and water disbursed with the roads closed. I will tell you what we're going to really need a lot of, Tony, is a lot of helicopters. They require a lot of fuel. The Carl Vinson's on the way. That's going to give them capability to refuel those helicopters.
But time is of the essence now to get those helicopters, food, water, and medicine, and probably thousands of body bags need to be en route, if they're not already on the ground, in Haiti. But the priority, as you know in operations like this, is about the living and how we're going to get medical care and the evacuation plan going so we get these people that need acute medical care before it's too late for them.
HARRIS: You are awesome. Thank you for your perspective. I know you moved a lot of things in your schedule today to be with us. General Honore, good to see you, as always. Thank you, my friend.
HONORE: Good day.
HARRIS: As the clock ticks on victims of Haiti's earthquake, we are bringing you the sights and sounds of this tragedy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Got to tell you, I've wanted to get our Pentagon correspondent, Chris Lawrence, up all morning and afternoon here, just to find out the status of Haiti's port there in Port-au-Prince. And we have Chris now.
Chris, if you would, give us a status report on the port, because, as you know, we've got to get ships there. We've got to get the materials off-loaded and to the people there in Port-au-Prince.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Tony, we kept hearing this question all over, you know, with so many islands around the Caribbean and elsewhere surrounding Haiti, you know, why aren't the ships coming in? Why isn't the aid getting here a little bit faster?
Well, we've now discovered why. It's the condition of this pier. You can take a look behind me. That's the main crane that would be off-loading those big containers right on to the shore. It's completely bent. Part of it submerged in the water. You can see partially some of the damage to some of the hangars back there.
And, normally, this would be the place where those ships would pull up. They'd pull up right down there at the end. They could off- load all that food and water, those big containers, on the trucks. And those trucks would come right down this road and ship it right into town. You could also get some heavy equipment.
Look what those trucks would hit this time.
HARRIS: Oh, my.
LAWRENCE: I mean the earthquake has buckled the road almost as tall as I am. I mean, about five feet high, Tony. And I can tell you, this road is buckled all the way leading out to the main road. There is no way that you could get trucks, you know, off -- off this road, you know, even if you got the supplies here, near, there's no way to get the supplies on the trucks and get it out to the people.
I just -- we just got done talking to a man who works for a shipping company. He's got three vessels, three vessels full of food, water, donated by charities out of Miami and some other places, but he's stuck right now because he doesn't have any way to actually off- load those and get them out to the people who need it so desperately.
HARRIS: Hey, Chris -- and maybe you don't know the answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway -- what's the plan b?
LAWRENCE: Well, that's a good question, Tony. We've heard, there are two U.S. Navy ships that are docked -- or Coast Guard ships that are docked a little bit offshore there. We were talking to someone affiliated with the United Nations. He says they're looking at possibly doing a landing on the beach. Taking some -- maybe some amphibious ships, small landing craft, and trying to do a landing on the beach to off-load some things. They're looking at a number of options because there's just no way you're going to repair this to the point where you can start getting some big trucks through here, Tony. No way.
HARRIS: All right, Pentagon correspondent Chris Lawrence there. Boy, that explains a lot, Chris. Appreciate it. Thank you.
We're waiting for the White House briefing to begin. It's scheduled to begin any moment now. I think we can sneak in a quick break before it does. We're back in a moment. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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HARRIS: You know, sometimes you just need to hear it. You just need to see it for yourselves. The sights and sounds of this tragedy in Haiti.
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HARRIS: And CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Don Lemon.
